Testing annoys heavy drinkers

Breathalyzer is new to Nairobi society.

Breathalyzer is new to Nairobi society.

December 25, 2005|SHASHANK BENGALI Knight Ridder Newspapers

NAIROBI, Kenya -- This holiday season, a new terror is stalking the streets of this East African capital: the Breathalyzer. Just say the word in a Nairobi bar and faces droop. Drinkers nervously scan the empty beer bottles in front of them. Some curse. Others complain bitterly about the cost of a cab ride home. The introduction this month of Kenya's first Breathalyzers -- long used in Western countries to test drivers' blood-alcohol levels but relatively new in Africa -- has sparked an outcry in a country where driving while intoxicated is, while not explicitly tolerated, certainly commonplace. It's even something of a national punch line; drinkers commonly say: "My car knows the way home." Police are trotting out Breathalyzers at a time when bars and nightclubs are packed fuller and later than usual with people celebrating the holidays. The alcohol-fueled revelry, combined with the sorry state of many of Nairobi's roads and vehicles, is a deadly mix. Kenya has one of the world's highest roadway death rates -- more than 3,000 a year for a population of 30 million. In 2004, there were 42,000 traffic deaths in the United States, but Americans travel much more and much farther on the roads than Kenyans do. Failing the breath test carries a $140 fine, jail time and the suspension of the driver's license. One recent week alone, police nabbed 130 drunken drivers. The devices are supposed to register a person as drunk after he's had the equivalent of two and a half beers. To some Kenyans, that's an insult. Like many African countries, this is a land of big drinkers, for whom pounding a dozen beers in a sitting -- then driving home -- isn't unusual. "Who's going to take three beers and go home?" asked an incredulous Steve Chege, 31, a used-car dealer, as he lingered over his third Tusker -- the best-selling national beer -- in a downtown Nairobi bar one recent evening. "Beer affects people in different ways. Some people could be totally drunk after half a glass. Me, I could be all right after two crates." A crate is 25 beers. Chege and two friends had come for drinks after work, as they do three to four nights a week. He recalled the time when the police stopped him for driving recklessly after a long night out a few years ago. "It was me and four friends in the car, and we were all high," he said, using slang for drunk. "The cop stopped us. He wanted a bribe. I said all I had was 20 bob" -- about 25 cents. Then the cop noticed two open beer bottles in the backseat. The cop took the tiny bribe -- and the beer -- and sent them on their way, Chege said.